For the Love of a Boy
by Cyn Finnegan
Summary: On his way back to the factory where a new type of mobile suit waits, a nameless teen rescues an abused little boy. Evil! Fudge, Evil! Snape. Inspired by "Everyone Needs A Hero" by SC Round Robins. Chapter 1 revised.
1. Prologue

**For the Love of a Boy**

I do not own Gundam Wing or the characters from them. I am just borrowing them. If I did own them, the Remastered version of the Gundam Wing series would be uncut and include a dubbed version of the "Odds & Evens" episodes. I don't own Harry Potter, either. He belongs to the lovely and talented J.K. Rowling.

**Gundam Wing characters © Sunrise. Used Without Permission and NOT for Profit.**

**Harry Potter & related characters © Joanne Katherine Rowling. Used Without Permission and NOT for Profit.**

**Chapter Summary:** Harry's arrival at the Dursleys. Inspired by "Everyone Needs A Hero" by SC Round Robins.

**Warning:** Rated "M" for language, some **mild** romance between Trowa and Quatre in later chapters, **non-explicit** NCS and violence. There is NO character bashing in this, except for maybe Dorothy, Duke Dermail, and most of OZ (okay, maybe not Treize and Lady Une so much). Other than that, friendships and relationships are mostly canon (01xR, 02xH, 03x04, future HPxGW, RWxHG).

_Italics_ - Thoughts, emphasis.

_:Italics between colons:_ - Telepathic conversation.

_"Italics in quotation marks"_ - written messages; TV and radio transmissions, telephone conversations.

* * *

**Prologue: #4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, UK, October 31, AC 188**

* * *

For about the fiftieth time that night, Albus Dumbledore wondered if Cornelius Fudge, the newly appointed Minister of Magic for all of Britain, wasn't a paranoid idiot. In the last few hours since the sudden and tragic deaths of James and Lily Potter, he'd found out that Fudge had overridden their will naming Sirius Black the legal guardian of their 15-month-old son Harrison, or Harry for short, ruling in favor of Lily's Muggle sister, Petunia Dursley, and her equally Muggle husband, Vernon, as Harry's guardians.

On the surface, Fudge's reasoning sounded logical, if rather antiquated. His reasons for subverting James and Lily's will were that, one, Sirius was related to four Death Eaters, by both blood and by marriage, and two, he was a bachelor with no experience in raising a child. Dumbledore didn't buy it, though. Sirius did have some experience with caring for Harry before James and Lily went into hiding. These were merely excuses for Fudge to exert _his_ sense of family and morality over the rest of the Wizarding world. In Fudge's world, that meant no unwed parents, no gays or lesbians and no one that didn't toe his line.

For an old wizard, Dumbledore was pretty well-informed about wonders of the Muggle world. Though he'd never been to one yet, he knew all about the space colonies, and about mobile suits, too! He'd seen one of those Leos just a couple of hours ago, and in spite of the danger it presented, it was a magnificent thing to behold!

_Muggles aren't just clever, they're ingenious!_ He thought cheerfully, and then sobered again when he remembered why he was there; placing Harry with his Muggle relatives.

He remembered the former Petunia Evans from when her sister Lily was a student at Hogwarts. Petunia was a jealous, hateful, bitter and spiteful woman, not only towards Lily but also to their elder sister, Marguerite, or Maggie for short.

Maggie was killed nearly six years ago when she and her husband, Nathan Bloom, were caught in the crossfire of a mobile suit battle. When the Alliance notified Petunia and Vernon of the deaths of Maggie and Nate, that their two-year-old son, Triton, was missing, and that their niece Cathy was an orphan, they said that, quite frankly, the four-year-old girl could go into foster care. The two-year-old boy, too, if they ever bothered to find him.

Why? Because her parents were circus folk and even at the age of four, Catherine Bloom could throw daggers with deadly accuracy, and for a toddler, her two-year-old brother Triton was an incredibly agile little boy who had an extraordinary sense of balance. If by some miracle Triton somehow managed to survive the Alliance's attack, he would grow up to be a gifted acrobat. It didn't hurt that both children had been blessed by being magic as their father was, either.

Dumbledore feared Petunia would take out her hatred and jealousy for her little sister out on Harry, and that Vernon might beat him for least little excuse, but what could he do. Fudge had put one of his size 11 feet down and ordered the elderly wizard to leave the baby with his Muggle relatives, love him or hate him. All Dumbledore had to do was wait for Hagrid to bring little Harry up from Godric's Hollow.

Albus had been discreetly observing the Dursleys for most of the evening, and came to the conclusion that they shouldn't be allowed to care for a goldfish, much less an exceptional child like Harry. Vernon was a great, intolerant walrus of a man, and Petunia an awful gossip. Their son, Dudley, whom Petunia and Vernon thought was the finest boy in the Earth Sphere, was in fact a spoiled brat and a bully, and quite probably more than a little stupid.

Of course, he wasn't the only one who observed the Dursleys this day. A gray and black tabby cat with spectacle markings around her eyes was watching, too, and she wasn't happy with what she saw. Dumbledore searched the pockets of his long, gray-lavender robes for something, and made an "Ah!" sound when he found it. He pulled out something that looked very much like an antique silver cigarette lighter and flicked it open.

When he opened it, every light on the street went completely out, leaving only two pools of green light from the cat's eyes. Minutes later, the cat jumped down from the wall where she's been stiffly sitting for hours, stretched and walked over to the old wizard. As she did, the cat transformed herself back into a severe-looking woman who wore wire frame glasses in exactly the shape of the markings the cat had around its eyes. She also wore a cloak, an emerald green one, her black hair was drawn into a tight bun, and she looked rather ruffled.

"Fancy meeting you here, Professor McGonagall," the wizard said to the dark-haired woman with a smile.

"How did you know I was here?" Minerva McGonagall asked tersely.

"My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit quite so stiffly."

"You'd be stiff, too, if you sat on a brick wall all day!" she sniffed, her Scottish accent coming to the fore. They argued for a few minutes, and then she finally asked, "What I've been hearing all day about James and Lily ... is it true, Albus? Are they ... _dead?_"

"I wish it were not, Minerva, but alas, it is true," Dumbledore replied sadly, and Professor McGonagall started to weep in response. James was her godson, and Lily her best student; their deaths at Voldemort's hands had hurt her as if she had lost her own children.

A few minutes and a lace hanky eye dab later, Minerva asked, "Why are we here?"

"Fudge has overridden James and Lily's will in favor of Lily's sister, Petunia, and her family. He's ordered me to leave him with them instead of following their wishes in the matter and giving him to Sirius Black. They're the only family he has left now."

"You don't mean the people who live _here_?" cried Professor McGonagall, jumping to her feet and pointing at number four. "Albus, please, you _can't_ mean them. I've been watching them all day. They're the _worst_ sort of Muggles! You couldn't find two people _less_ like us, and their son ... I saw him kick his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets! Harry Potter live _here!_"

"It's the best place for him right now," Dumbledore said with an air of finality. Albus knew Minerva was right, of course, but he had no choice in the matter. "His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him as he gets older. I've written them a letter."

"A letter?" Professor McGonagall scoffed, sitting back down on the wall. "Really, Albus, do you seriously think you can explain all of this to them in a letter? These people will never understand him! He's already famous ... there will be books written about him ... every child in our world will know his name!"

"Exactly," Dumbledore said, looking at Minerva over the tops of his half-moon glasses. "It'll be enough to turn any young boy's head. Being famous before he can walk or talk, and for something he won't even remember doing ... I cannot think of a worse fate for a child. He'll be better off not knowing about any of this until he's old enough to understand it all.

"Minerva, if I had a choice in the matter and they were still with us, I would leave Harry with Maggie and Nathan. Catherine and little Triton would have loved having a baby brother."

Professor McGonagall opened her mouth to speak, changed her mind, and then swallowed hard to remove another lump in her throat. Minerva finally said with a sigh "Yes, you're right, of course. But how is he getting here?"

"Hagrid is bringing him."

"Do you think trusting Hagrid with something as important as this is _wise_?"

"I'd trust Hagrid with my life," Dumbledore said with certainty.

"I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place," Professor McGonagall replied grudgingly, "but you can't pretend he isn't careless. He does tend to - what on Earth is that?"

Just then, the low, rumbling sound of an engine broke the silence around them. It got louder and louder as they looked for some sign of a headlight, and swelled to a thunderous roar as they looked to the sky. A moment later, a huge motorcycle dropped out of the sky and landed on the road in front of them.

If the motorcycle was huge, it was nothing compared to the man riding it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man was and at least five times as wide. He looked too large and too wild to be real. His long, black hair and beard were bushy and hid most of his face, his hands were the size of trashcan lids, and his feet, encased in leather boots, resembled baby dolphins. He was holding a blanket-lined bassinet in his hugely muscled arms.

"Hagrid, at last," Dumbledore said, sounding relieved. "Where did you get that motorcycle?"

"Borrowed it from young Sirius Black, Professor Dumbledore, sir," the giant replied, carefully climbing off the motorcycle as he spoke. "He lent it ter me. I've got him, sir."

"Were there any problems finding him?"

"No, sir - not much of th' house was left, but I got 'im out aright before them Muggles started swarmin' over th' place. He finally dropped off ter sleep while we was flyin' over Bristol."

While Hagrid spoke, Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bent over to look in the basket. Inside it was a sleeping baby boy, and on his forehead, hidden by a tuft of jet-black hair, was an odd shaped cut that looked like a lightning bolt.

"Is that where Voldemort - ?" Professor McGonagall whispered almost fearfully.

"Yes," said Dumbledore, "and he'll have that scar for the rest of his life."

"Can't we do something about it, Dumbledore? It's going to _mark_ him ...!"

"I wouldn't, even if I could. Scars can be useful things to have. In fact, I have one myself. It's just above my left knee, and it's a perfect map of the London Underground. Well, give him here, Hagrid. We'd better get this over with."

Dumbledore took little Harry from the half-giant and carried him towards his new home.

"Could ... could I say good-bye to him, sir?" asked Hagrid. He bent his great, shaggy head over Harry and gave him what could only be an itchy kiss, and Hagrid suddenly let out a howl like a kicked puppy.

"Shhhh!" Professor McGonagall hissed, putting her finger to her lips. "You'll wake up the Muggles!"

"I'm s-sorry," sobbed Hagrid, taking out a large, spotted handkerchief and burying his face in it. "But I c-c-can't stand it ... Lily an' James are gone ... an' poor little Harry's off ter live with Muggles -"

"I know you're sad, Hagrid, but you need to get a grip on yourself, or we'll be seen," Professor McGonagall whispered, gingerly patting the huge man's arm as Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and strode up to the front door. He laid Harry gently on the doorstep, took the letter he mentioned earlier out of his cloak, tucked it in Harry's bassinet. He then went back to join the other two.

For a moment, the three of them stood and looked at the small, blanket-wrapped bundle. Hagrid's enormous shoulders shook with emotion, Professor McGonagall furiously blinked away the tears in her eyes, and the inner light that usually twinkled from Dumbledore's bright blue orbs seemed to have fizzled out.

"Well, that's that," Dumbledore finally said with a sad, heavy sigh. "We've no more business being here. We might as well go and join in the celebrations."

"Yeah," said Hagrid in a much muffled voice, "I'd best get this back ter Sirius. G'night, Professor McGonagall, Professor Dumbledore, sir."

Wiping streams of tears away with the sleeve of his jacket, Hagrid climbed onto the motorcycle and kicked the engine into life; with a roar it rose into the air and off into the night.

"I expect I'll see you soon, Professor McGonagall?" Dumbledore asked as he nodded to her. Professor McGonagall blew her nose in reply.

As soon as she was out of sight, Dumbledore turned and walked back down to the corner. Once there, he turned around and took out his silver Deluminator, clicking it once. Twelve balls of light swiftly sped back to their street lamps, and Privet Drive once again glowed under the orange of mercury vapor. He made out the shape of a tabby cat as it slunk around the corner at the other end of the street, as well as the blanket-lined basket sitting on the stoop of number four.

"Good luck, Harry," the old wizard murmured as he turned on his heel, then vanished with a faint crack as a light, cold wind jostled the hedges that lay neatly and quietly under the starry night sky. Privet Drive was the very last place you'd expect something amazing would happen.

In his blankets, Harry rolled over without ever waking up, one of his tiny hands closing on the letter beside him. He continued to sleep without knowing he was special or famous. He didn't know he would be woken up in a few hours by his aunt's shrill scream when she opened the door to set out the bottles for the milkman, nor did he know that he would spend the next few weeks being poked and pinched by his already tubby cousin, Dudley.

He didn't know that, at this very moment, people met in secret all over the country, held up glasses and said in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter ... the boy who lived!"

* * *

**Author's Notes:** No, I am **not** shelving _Finding Triton_; in fact, chapter 5 is about 2/3 of the way done. I'd just needed a little break from getting my Gundam Wing fan site back up and running by the deadline I'd set for myself (Monday, May 7th). You can find a link to the site in my deviantArt signature.

Yes, "our" Trowa is a Brit in this one, too (personally, I think "our" Trowa/Triton Bloom is a Brit, period, while the real Trowa Barton was possibly of Russian descent), and so is Cathy, though neither have much of an accent anymore. They're biological brother and sister in this, and Harry is related to them both.


	2. Two Lost Boys

**Disclaimers & Copyright Info:** See Prologue.

**Warnings: Contains scenes of same sex NCS.**

**Chapter Summary:** Harry meets Nanashi.

Inspired by "Everyone Needs A Hero" by SC Round Robins.

_Italics_ - Thoughts, emphasis.

_**CAPS IN BOLD ITALICS**_ - Shouting/screaming.

_:Italics between colons:_ - Telepathic conversation.

"_Italics in quotation marks_" - written messages; TV and radio transmissions, telephone conversations.

**Chapter One: Two Lost Boys**

**Colony 8253 in the L3 Cluster, 3 March, AC 195**

The L3 cluster was a cash-poor colony for the most part. Not quite as poor as much of the L2 grouping was, and the divide between the haves and have nots wasn't nearly as great, but it was far from being a wealthy one like the L1, L4 and L5 clusters were. And like the L2 cluster, what little there was in the way of law enforcement was rotten to the core.

The newest colony in the L3 cluster, X-18999, would remain one of the poorest. Though its construction was bankrolled by multi-billionaire and so-called pacifist Dekim Barton, it was built for a specific purpose: to be dropped onto the Earth. It was all part of an evil scheme the elderly man cooked up to get revenge for the death of colonial leader and pacifist Hiiro Yui nearly twenty years earlier.

Thanks to the United Earth Sphere Alliance, the Romefeller Foundation, and the Organization of the Zodiac, or OZ for short, Earth and Space had been at war with each other since before the day of Hiiro Yui's assassination in AC 175. If the elderly Barton was to be believed, twenty years of enmity and meaningless bloodshed between the Earth and the Colonies would end when X-18999 crashed planetside. The mobile suit that would follow the colony was being sent to slaughter anyone who resisted afterwards.

If there was one major flaw in Barton's plan, it was this: the people of the Earth _wouldn't_ be the only ones to suffer and die, but all life on the Colonies would slowly and painfully end, too. While Earth died trapped in an endless nuclear winter, the surviving Colonies, all of whom still relied on the Earth for certain foodstuffs, medicine and other luxuries, would die out from slow starvation and disease.

From a strategic standpoint, the problems Operation Meteor would cause far outweighed any advantages Dekim claimed it would create. At least that's how the cinnamon-haired boy everyone called Nanashi felt about it.

_Why would anyone claiming to be a friend and follower of Hiiro Yui want to destroy Earth and the Colonies? It doesn't make sense_, the boy thought as he walked back to the factory where he worked, shoving his hands into the pockets of his faded jeans. He was returning from a rare lunch out to his job at a top secret factory, and managed to walk a couple of blocks more before he heard a commotion starting up.

"_**COME BACK HERE, YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE FREAK!**_" came the shrill shriek of a woman from the alley the nameless boy was passing, followed by the outraged bellow of a man and the pain-filled outcry of a child. To the teen, it sounded like the cry of a child who was being beaten.

Nanashi was right; there at the end of the alley stood a huge fat man with no neck and a fringe of dark hair, wearing what looked like a hastily thrown on wool coat over a pair of pajamas and a pair of slippers. With him was a blonde-haired woman with a long neck and a face like a horse, also in a heavy coat and slippers. Both stood bent over the cowering form of a small child, a boy, the man holding a belt in his hand.

At the woman's urging, the man hit the boy several times with the strip of leather and was about to strike him again, but the blow never landed. Instead, the man found his wrist caught in the painfully tight grip of a slender and fine-boned but strong hand. He bellowed as the young stranger's hand squeezed on his wrist joint until it creaked, dangerously close to breaking, and dropped the belt.

Sensing that his young life might be safer with a total stranger than his "family," the young boy ran up to the teen and hid behind him while the man groaned in pain, clutching his arm to his chest. The woman gave the teen a hard stare, as if she recognized the boy from somewhere... or some _when_.

"You," the woman said to Nanashi with an almost crazed look on her face. "You look like Maggie's younger brat, Triton, did. Another freak, that boy was... as bad as her eldest, Catherine. _Freaks_, the lot of you... "

_Freaks?_ Nanashi thought, cocking his visible eyebrow upward. _Okay, this lady has lost it, so I'd better think of something fast before they decide to take more of their frustrations out on the boy, or on me._

Suddenly, the man's lumbering form again lunged at the slender youth, hoping to overwhelm him, but the youth had the advantage of being taught how to defend himself since his earliest memory. It was simple enough for him to dodge the fat man's clumsy charge by sidestepping away from him, then grabbing the man's outstretched arm and drive an elbow into his shoulder socket, dislocating it. The woman was about to scream for a constable, but the seemingly silent boy spoke first.

"You're lucky I'm not armed, lady, or your husband would be a dead man right now. I don't much like people who get off on beating small children bloody. You're also lucky there's nothing resembling decent law enforcement on this colony, or you'd _both_ be in jail for abusing this boy."

"We _weren't_ abusing the lazy little freak!" the man exclaimed in response, then winced from the pain of his dislocated shoulder. "He _deserves_ a beating for running away...!"

"Bullshite! Human or beast, _no one_ deserves to be treated like that for _any_ reason!" the young man snapped, the rage he felt towards the couple almost palpable. He calmed down after a moment, turned to the boy and asked "Do you want to leave them? If so, and if you want to, you can come with me."

The child nodded, and as the pair of adults gaped after them like landed fish, Nanashi scooped the little boy up and started to walk away from the couple. The woman angrily ranted at the man to go after them, but he just sat there and groaned in pain. Hearing his moans, the woman started dithering over her husband, the runaway child and his rescuer forgotten for the meantime.

After a few blocks, he set the child down, and then knelt so his eyes were level with the little boy's. The boy was at least five years old, maybe seven at the oldest, if Nanashi had to hazard a guess, and looked perfectly adorable with tousled ebony hair and big green eyes. The t-shirt, shorts and cross trainers he wore were dirty, torn, and many sizes too big for him, probably cast offs from a far older or a far fatter child.

Worse, the cheap frames of the glasses precariously perched on the end of his nose were more tape than plastic, and the lenses were so badly scratched it was a wonder the child could actually see out of them. Nanashi swore to himself that he'd buy the boy a new pair out of his next paycheck.

"Are you hurt, little bit? What's your name?" the nameless boy asked. The little boy shook his head, looked down at his feet and said "Freak" in a shame-filled whisper. Hearing this, Nanashi snorted and added "That might be what _they_ called you, but I doubt that's your name. So, what does everyone else call you?"

Nanashi ruffled the child's hair and noticed that, underneath the bangs, the child's eyes were the same shade of emerald green as his own. Lifting the boy's hair a little higher, he noticed a lightning bolt-shaped scar carved into the middle of his forehead and wondered if either the walrus or the giraffe might have given it to him.

"It's Harry, sir... Harry Potter," he finally answered after a long moment of silence, then asked "What's yours?"

"I don't have a name... not a proper one, anyway. Everyone just calls me Nanashi, not sir."

"Nanashi? What's that mean?"

"It's Japanese for "No-name." The man who raised me 'til I was nine called me that," the taller boy explained. "Maybe you can pick out a name for me, one only you can call me by."

"Well, what my aunt called you wasn't bad. How about that?" Harry asked.

_Triton_, Nanashi thought. _It _sounds_ familiar... and in spite of what the giraffe said, it's not stupid, either. At any rate, it sounds a lot better than Nanashi. Thanks a lot, Captain, for giving me a name that actually means "no name."_

"Okay, Harry. For you, I'm Triton," the nameless boy said with a faint smile, then gave Harry a "meep" on the nose. In return, the little boy giggled and gave him a hug, then suddenly stiffened up in Nanashi's arms and murmured "Oh, no!"

"What's wrong?"

"My aunt and uncle ... they'll _kill me_ for running away! And Aunt Petunia will blame me for Uncle Vernon getting hurt!" Harry said quietly, his little face a mask of fear.

"No they won't. That was all on me," Nanashi replied with a slight smile, offering Harry his hand. "As for those two, they can't get mad at us if they can't _find_ us."

"Where are we going?" Harry asked as he took it, more curious than anything else.

"Someplace really brilliant. D'you like Mobile Suits?"

"Yeah! 'Specially Leos!"

"Then you're gonna _love_ this place."

Within a few minutes time, Nanashi and Harry were inside a secret factory where the teen lived and worked, and the first thing the little boy saw was a tall, human-like figure made of some kind of metal. Nanashi scooped Harry back up and then walked them both closer to the mobile suit. Harry could feel something emanating from the suit; a comforting presence that welcomed its mechanic back, and Nanashi felt it, too.

"Harry, this is Heavyarms," he said, patting the suit's leg fondly. "Heavyarms, this is Harry."

The suit the older boy called Heavyarms was as tall as a Leo, but that was where the resemblance ended. This mobile suit was mostly white with a vermilion "chest" trimmed in deep blue. Its head, which actually looked like a head, had green "eyes," wore a deep blue "helmet," and sported a crimson "beard" on its chin.

"It's brilliant, but it doesn't look much like a Leo," Harry replied. "What is it?"

"She's called a Gundam."

"Why?"

"Because her armor is made from Gundanium alloy."

"Oh," Harry said, and then asked curiously, "so why do you call it a she when it looks like a boy?"

"You know, that's a good question," Nanashi replied with a grin.

He didn't know what it was about this boy, but for some reason, the normally stoic teenager couldn't help but smile around him. It was as if some of the terrible loneliness he'd endured ever since he could remember had been lifted and it was all thanks to Harry.

The spell was broken when another technician shouted to the pair that Doktor S was looking for the teen, and he wasn't pissed off at anyone for a change. Still carrying Harry, Nanashi rushed over to his work area, set the little boy down, picked up a screwdriver and got back to work. He didn't want to be caught slacking.

A while later, a man with a shock of iron gray hair walked up to the pair of boys, and Harry couldn't help but stare at him. Attached to the man's face with elastic bands that went around his ears was a prosthetic nose made of metal. It even had tiny rivets holding the plates together.

He inspected the machine for several long minutes when he noticed the magnetic coating on the drive system, something that was _not_ specified on the Gundam's original blueprint. The man known only as Doktor S knew ingenuity when he saw it, and this technician, though still just a boy, had it in spades.

Doktor S usually only approached one of the technicians if he thought one of them needed a reprimand, and Nanashi thought he was in for it. As he approached though, the scientist put on his friendliest face, noticing that the little boy was trying to hide behind the older one.

"Excuse me, young man," he said to Nanashi. "Were you the one who applied the magnetic coating to the drive system?"

Nanashi nodded in reply and Doktor S added "It's perfect; beautiful work. Where did you learn the technique?"

Almost blushing, Nanashi looked down at the catwalk in front of him, hmmmed and climbed the steps up to a computerized console at Heavyarms' head with Harry hot on his heels. As the two boys left, the scientist grinned slightly and quipped "Heh ... well, he certainly is an odd one. Anyone else would have bragged about it."

Nanashi got to the console and got back to work, this time working on the Gundam's programming. Harry watched, or tried to watch, as the older boy's fingers flew nimbly over the keyboard. Seeing Harry's interest in what he was doing, Nanashi pulled a metal crate over to the console, stood Harry up on it, and ran through some computer basics with him. He was starting to teach the little boy some simple hacking codes when a booze and cigarette-roughened voice bellowed out.

"Hey, No-name! How's my Heavyarms?" Trowa Barton, the only son of the man who had planned Operation Meteor and was financing Heavyarms' construction, hollered as he came into the Nanashi's area.

"Fine," the boy said tersely, not looking up from his work.

Barton was the _last_ person the nameless teen wanted to see right now, mainly because the man had no concept of the term "boundaries." Barton was always grabbing at Nanashi, or draping his arms around the boy, and then there was the condescending way Barton called him "No-name" rather than Nanashi. It all made the teen feel dirty and incredibly uncomfortable.

Harry wisely hid himself behind the Gundam from the older, sandy haired man. Barton's loud, booming voice reminded him a little too much of his uncle, and Harry had learned early on that when Vernon Dursley sounded happy, _he_ was going to get a beating and locked up in the cupboard under the stairs without any supper.

"Lemme show ya something I've never shown anyone else," Barton continued, whipping what looked to be a scrap of paper out of the breast pocket of his coveralls. It was an old photo of a blonde haired woman and a red-headed little girl. He pulled the youth into a tight embrace and added "This is a pic of my sister Leia and her little girl, Mariemaia. I thought she died with Leia on X-18999, but my dad hired a PI and they _found_ her. After we take over the Earth, we're gonna make her our Queen."

While this went on, Nanashi swallowed hard and held his breath as Barton's hand ran to the nameless boy's chest. Rumor had it the man's tastes ran to raping teenaged boys and that made the youth nervous. After a few more moments, as Barton released him from his grasp, a dizzy Nanashi let it out a deep, shuddering sigh of relief. He hadn't even realized how long he'd been holding it in until that moment.

"Later, No-name," Barton said with a nasty grin, returning the photo to his pocket as he left. Unbeknownst to either boy, he had seen Harry when he came in, and filed the information away for later use. Trowa Barton wasn't averse to using blackmail as long as it got him what he wanted.

-== 0000 ==-

Four grueling hours later, Nanashi took Harry back to the small studio apartment the older boy kept inside the factory. They were both hungry and a bit tired, but that would soon be remedied. As they entered the room, the green-eyed youth sat Harry down on a comfortable looking chair and, as gently and patiently as possible, began to question him.

"Harry, you said those two were your aunt and uncle. Where are your parents?" the teen asked.

"Dead," Harry replied glumly. "My mum and dad died in a car accident when I was little. My uncle said that my dad was probably drunk and fighting with my mum when it happened. My aunt agreed with him and told me that's how I got this scar on my forehead."

That sounded like the type of lie an envious pair like those two might tell a child they felt saddled with the responsibility for. With the idea of hacking into the Alliance's database for a later background check, the cinnamon-haired youth decided to press on with his questions.

"What were their names? And what are your aunt and uncle's names?"

Harry eyed Nanashi suspiciously, but answered him with "My mum and dad's names were James and Lily Potter, and my aunt and uncle are Vernon and Petunia Dursley. Why do you ask?"

Nanashi decided to be honest with Harry. "So I can go online later and check out your uncle's story. It sounds like he and your aunt have been lying to you. Now, what about you? How did you get to be here, of all places?"

"I wasn't _supposed_ to be here, but Mrs. Figg, she's the old lady my aunt and uncle dump me on when they decide to reward Dudley with a special trip, well, she got hurt and couldn't watch me. They don't trust me enough to leave me home alone, so they _had_ to bring me along. They never let me out of the hotel room, though."

"Why not?"

"They told me that my freakishness was an embarrassment to them. I only wanted to go outside and see the colony before we left! I wasn't _trying_ to run away, Triton, honest!"

With Harry starting to cry at that point, Nanashi was satisfied that his new little brother was being completely truthful. He held Harry until the sobs ceased, brushed away his tears, and did what his old captain once did for him; he gave Harry a show of trust by handing the child a twenty credit chit.

"There's a cafe on the level below us," the teen explained, closing the boy's hand around the token. "Now, what I want you to do is to take this over there and buy us some sandwiches, soup, potato crisps, and maybe some fresh fruit for our supper. If there's anything left on it when you're done, you can keep it."

"Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would _never_ let me go to the store, or trust me with money. They thought I'd take it and run away. So why are _you_ trusting me with this?" Harry wondered, and Nanashi bet himself ten credits that he would get sick of hearing the words "Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would never" before another week was gone.

Why _did_ he trust Harry? Although he'd told others he was a soldier since he could remember, Nanashi also remembered the Alliance orphanage he'd run away from at the tender age of four. Much like the Dursleys, the governors who ran the place treated the children confined there terribly. Beatings for the least little slip up were commonplace and, more often than not, he and the other children went to their cots with empty bellies while the "Govs" lived high on the hog.

The first chance he got, he ran away, hoping to someday get to go to outer space.

The mercenaries who found him wandering into their camp fed him, clothed him, taught him to play the flute, taught him to be a soldier and taught him a trade beyond being a soldier. They also loved him like the son or little brother many of them had lost, and didn't even mind that he was a natural as a mobile suit pilot.

Looking at Harry again, he was beginning to understand how the mercs had felt about him. Another moment later, he ruffled the little boy's hair and said "Because I'm an orphan, too. I've been in similar straits as you were, so I know how you feel. Believe it or not, Harry, you've become like a little brother to me, and if I can't trust my little brother, who _can_ I trust?"

"So orphans like us should stick together?" the child asked, sniffling.

"Yep, we should," the teen replied with a gentle smile.

With that, Harry began to cheer up. He then took the chit and left the small apartment, running happily in the direction of the commissary.

When Harry left, Nanashi stripped off his coveralls to reveal a light blue t-shirt and a pair of faded, worn out and comfortable denim jeans. Soon, the nameless teen booted up his laptop and, using the codes he'd begun teaching the little boy earlier, hacked into the Alliance's database. He found Harry's birth and school records easily enough, but there were no files listed with the British government about where he lived.

After finding nothing there, Nanashi then started his background check with the Dursleys, and found out some interesting things about the head of that household.

Vernon Dursley was the director of a company called Grunnings, which made drills, mining, refining and recycling equipment. Digging a little deeper, he found out that Dursley had business dealings not only with the Alliance and OZ, but with Winner Mining and Construction, a company run by a well-known family of pacifists from the L4 cluster who owned all or part of several resource satellites, and with Nanashi's own employer, the Barton Foundation.

In other words, Vernon was playing all sides against the middle, and didn't care whose side won the war as long as Grunnings made a hefty profit in time for its quarterly shareholders meeting.

From all appearances, Petunia Dursley, formerly Petunia Evans, was a typical housewife and mother of one child, a son named Dudley, but she had ways of ferreting out information on her neighbors that would make any Alliance or OZ spy envious. She also had two very dead sisters: Marguerite Evans-Bloom, who was killed in early AC 182, and Lily Potter, who died on Halloween night, AC 188. Petunia never once mentioned either of her sisters to anyone. Was it because of embarrassment or something _else_?

A bit more digging showed that the Dursleys didn't actually have legal custody of Harry; that privilege belonged to Harry's godfather, a gentleman named Sirius Black. Unfortunately, Black had been accused of the terrorist killings of thirteen people in London and his current whereabouts were unknown.

There was also the fact that several complaints had been filed by some of their former neighbors and a few of Harry's former teachers. The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service started an initial investigation, but oddly enough, no follow up was ever done on any of the complaints about Petunia and Vernon's mistreatment of Harry. The people who filed them either lost their jobs, were forced to move away, or both.

All he could find on the Dursleys son, Dudley, was that he was an abysmal student and the school's biggest bully. Harry was probably his favorite target, too, what with him being so small and scrawny. He couldn't find much on Vernon's sister, Marge Dursley, either, other than she was a breeder of English bulldogs, had no police record and had never been married, but it wouldn't have surprised Nanashi if _she'd_ also abused Harry sometime in the past.

_I'll need to teach Harry how to defend himself,_ Nanashi thought with a deep frown. _If he's going to survive these times, he'll need to know how to fight off enemies, and there are a few other things I can teach him, too, like gymnastics, acrobatics, and how to throw knives and shoot. There's _no way_ in Hell I'm going to allow him to be victimized any more than he's _been_..._

Finished with the Dursleys for a while, Nanashi started digging into James, Lily, and Harry Potter's records. He found birth, medical and scholastic records on Lily, as well as a marriage license, passport, and a death certificate. However, it seemed as though Lily's recorded history ended shortly after her 11th birthday and didn't pick up again until her marriage to James Potter in AC 186.

On the other hand, James had literally no records on him at all. It was as if he hadn't existed from the day of his birth until the day he married Lily Evans. As for the supposed car accident, there was no reported traffic fatalities filed on October 31st of AC 188. In truth, the bodies of Lily and James Potter had been found in the remains of a cottage located in a village called Godric's Hollow. The really odd thing was that while the house was literally blown to smithereens, James and Lily's bodies had not one mark on them.

Frustrated with the results on the Potters, the teen turned his attention to the Blooms and was met with similar results. There were reams of information on Maggie Bloom up until her death in AC 182, but next to nothing on Nathan Bloom. Like Lily Potter, Nathan's recorded history ended shortly after his 11th birthday and didn't pick up again until he and Maggie married.

Except for his birth certificate, an ER report for the treatment of a third degree burn on his upper back, and a missing persons report, there was nothing on the Blooms' two-year-old son Triton, not even a death certificate. However, their daughter Catherine had been adopted at the age of four by their business partner, a man named Seamus Blackthorn, who still managed the circus they had jointly owned. Catherine had a knife throwing act and was the star of the one ring show.

The doorbell chimed suddenly, interrupting Nanashi's train of thought. Thinking it might be Harry, he put his laptop on hibernate, pushed himself away from the small table, and went to answer it.

"Back already? That was pretty fast...," the teen said with a slight smile as the door slid open. A moment later, his smile faded into a frown when he saw who was on the other side. The man standing in the hallway was none other than Trowa Barton.

"What do _you_ want?" the teen snarled.

"Now, now, No-name, is that any way to greet the guy who makes sure his father signs your tiny paychecks?" Barton asked Nanashi with an evil grin as he forced his way into the boy's quarters. "I just want to know who the kid is and where he came from."

"Why? So you can do to him what you've been _trying_ to do to me? Isn't he a little _young_ for you?"

"_He_ is, but _you_ aren't. We _both_ know the kid is no relation of yours, No-name, and if you don't want me to send him back to wherever you found him, you'll let me..."

"Like Hell I will. You _stay away_ from him, and you stay away from _me_, or I'll kill..."

Nanashi green eyes widened as he felt something slam into his solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him, then looked down to see Barton's fist about two inches from it. As the youth clutched his abdomen, Barton struck him again, this time across the cheek, sending him spinning to land face down on the floor. What seemed a split second later, Barton was on top of him, pinning his wrists behind his back with one hand while he unfastened and took off the teen's belt with the other.

"_**NO! GET OFF OF ME! GET OFF!**_" Nanashi yelled breathlessly, struggling against the mass of the man's heavier form as Barton bound his hands, cutting off the circulation to them.

Nanashi ceased his struggles when he heard the whisper of a steel blade coming out of a leather sheath and felt the cold metal of the knife as it was pressed against the small of his back. Barton almost seemed to go mad at that point. He used the knife to completely strip the clothes off of Nanashi's body; first cutting off the thin t-shirt, then the faded jeans. Barton tossed the ruined garments across the room as he cut them away, leaving the boy naked but for a pair of light blue boxer briefs.

A moment later, Nanashi felt the tip of Barton's knife nick his skin as it slipped under the waistband of his briefs, followed by the sound of fabric tearing. The green-eyed youth knew what was about to happen... how could he not?... because the captain had drilled it into his head that the enemy wouldn't think twice about raping a child, male or female.

Much to his shame, Nanashi started to tremble uncontrollably. For the first time since his fellow mercs were betrayed to OZ and the Alliance, he was terrified, and that brought some of his fight back. He began to buck, squirm and kick, trying to get Barton's weight off of him. As a response, Barton grabbed the youth by his hair and slammed his head onto the floor, nearly knocking him unconscious.

The next sound Nanashi heard was that of a zipper being undone, then a pair of hands pulling his buttocks apart, exposing his anus. The older man then proceeded to brutally rape the teen from behind. Nanashi bit back a scream of pain at this violation. He felt as though he were being torn in half, but his cries only seemed to goad Barton further, the man both laughing and grunting with each thrust. Within another five minutes, it was all over.

"Pity I can't take my time with you right now, No-name," Barton's voice hissed in Nanashi's ear as he rubbed the nameless teen's ass, "but I can't hang around. Your little buddy's gonna be back soon, and I can't be found here. And you'd better keep your mouth shut. Wouldn't do to have the doc find out about this, now would it?"

With that, Barton rose, zipped up his pants, and then exited Nanashi's quarters, leaving the boy's body lying on the floor, broken, bleeding and catatonic from shock.

-== 0000 ==-

As he carried their supper of turkey sandwiches and potato crisps with cups of hot tomato soup and fresh fruit, Harry opened the door to his and Triton's quarters and was met by a sight no child should see.

There was blood pooled on the floor, and his new big brother was lying face down in the middle of it, bruised and beaten unconscious. His jeans and t-shirt had been neatly sliced off of his body and discarded across the room. His boxer briefs were cut up the back and stained with crimson, and his slender wrists were bound tightly behind his back with his own belt, the leather also stained with blood from cruelly cutting into his flesh.

In a panic, Harry dropped the bag holding their dinner, ran out and started to yell for help. It didn't take long for someone to arrive.

-== 0000 ==-

**Author's Notes:** I apologize for how long it's taken to get this chapter finished. First, my old Compaq laptop died on me in September and it's been Hell and a half trying to get any sort of a replacement.

Second, I'd had this chapter almost completed last month, but something happened and I'd lost over half of it (good thing I had a backup of the file in another location).

Third, no matter if it's same or opposite sex or how detailed it is (or isn't), a rape scene is not an easy thing to write, especially if you love the character.

I also apologize for how long this chapter got to be.

I forgot to explain it in the last chapter, but other than being the French form of Margaret, a marguerite is a variety of Cape daisy, hence in keeping with the flower names of the Evans sisters. The neat thing about Cape daisies are that the centers, where the seed eventually appear, also bloom with tiny blossoms.

When I finally get to the part where Harry goes to Hogwarts, I'm thinking of having Mariemaia go with him. Not sure which House I'll put her in if I do, but she and Harry will wind up being friends in this.

As for the real Trowa Barton, I've always thought an adult man draping himself over an obviously uncomfortable teenaged boy was more than a little creepy, and that there had to be something hinky going on.

**Next Chapter:** Fudge blows his top over Harry's "abduction," Nanashi is treated for his injuries, he and Harry start displaying "Newtype abilities," and Trowa Barton gets what's coming to him.


	3. Battered and Bloodied

**Disclaimers & Copyright Info:** See Prologue.

**Warnings: Violence and references to Barton's sexual assault of Nanashi from last chapter**

**Chapter Summary:** Fudge blows his top at Dumbledore over Harry's supposed "abduction," Nanashi is treated for his injuries while he and Harry start displaying "Newtype abilities," and Trowa Barton gets what's coming to him.

Inspired by "Everyone Needs A Hero" by SC Round Robins.

This chapter is dedicated to my dad, Patrick Finnegan.

_Italics_ - Thoughts, emphasis.

_**CAPS IN BOLD ITALICS**_ - Shouting/screaming.

_:Italics between colons:_ is for telepathic conversation.

_"Italics in quotation marks"_ is for written messages; TV and radio transmissions, telephone conversations.

**Chapter Two: Battered and Bloodied**

**The Offices of Cornelius Fudge, Ministry of Magic, London, 7 March, AC 195**

Albus Dumbledore could feel the beginnings of a migraine coming on even as he appeared at the London offices of the Ministry of Magic. He had no idea why he'd been summoned to the Minister's office yet, but he was about to find out that something was very wrong indeed.

As he sat down in the proffered chair, Dumbledore noticed that the current Minister of Magic, Cornelius Oswald Fudge, was livid. He found out why a moment later. Fudge had just received a report from one of the many watchers he had assigned to Scotland Yard that Vernon and Petunia Dursley returned to Surrey from a family trip, minus one Harry Potter. Once there, Vernon, visibly upset, sporting a dislocated shoulder, filed a kidnapping report on the boy. After spouting off some nonsense about space colonies and teenaged boys with ninja skills, that is.

Fudge could feel the plans he'd made for little Harry's future, plans that he'd nurtured since the day the boy was born, starting to fall apart at the seams. If the boy couldn't be found and returned to the Dursleys, then he couldn't be brought under Ministry control. He wouldn't be able to face and kill Voldemort, if he ever returned, and then be declared a Dark Wizard himself. Then Fudge couldn't have Harry sentenced to a fate worse than death; given the Dementors' Kiss.

"I don't care _how_ or _why_ it happened!" Fudge started, his voice getting louder with each syllable. "Our savior from You-Know-Who is _missing_, possibly _kidnapped_, and his aunt and uncle are _beside themselves_ with...!"

"Most likely with glee," Dumbledore replied with deceptive calm, steepling his hands in front of him. "I _warned you_ that this would happen, Cornelius. I've told you many times over the past six years that placing Harry with the Dursleys would be a grievous mistake, and this incident in the Space Colonies proves me... "

"I've already told you that _there are no wheel-shaped metal structures in outer space_, Albus! There is _no possible way_ for anyone to live out there!"

Certain wizarding families notwithstanding, very few pure-blooded wizards believed that such things as tablet and laptop computers, cell phones, the Internet, mobile suits, Space Colonies and the shuttles to take folks to and from them even existed, much less that they were invented by Muggles. Since, to their minds, the intelligence of the average Muggle was little better than that of an ape, most pure-bloods simply couldn't accept the fact that lowly Muggles could ever be _that_ creative.

Then again, some pure-blood wizards, like Arthur Weasley and Dumbledore himself, were utterly fascinated by the technology of this day and age, almost to the point of obsession. Arthur himself was known to have a collection of electrical plugs, old cellular phones and batteries of various shapes and sizes, and Dumbledore's love of mobile suits would rival that of any child.

But now was not the time to ruminate on those things. Now was the time to worry about little Harry Potter, and to wonder why Fudge was so desperate to get him back to the family who despised him for what he was. Albus had the feeling that, wherever he was, Harry was far safer _there_ than he was with the Dursleys. The Minister of Magic was playing ostrich again by refusing to see the reality that the Dursleys were abusing their nephew for being born a wizard.

"No wonder they called you "Cornball" while you were attending Hogwarts," a frustrated Dumbledore muttered almost too softly to be heard.

"What was _that?_" Fudge demanded angrily, his face turning puce.

"Nothing at all, Cornelius, nothing at all. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to Hogwarts. A school cannot run itself, you know."

Unable to get Fudge to see truth or reason, Dumbledore left the Minister's office. From there, he took the lift back down to the lobby and, upon exiting, once again grimaced at the statue standing there. It showed several species such as goblins, centaurs, werewolves, giants, veelas and house elves all looking up adoringly at a witch and wizard as if they were the superior race.

Fact was that only house elves viewed wizards that way, but that was due to centuries of conditioning.

Many of the rest viewed wizards and witches as either equals or somehow beneath them. Many in the Ministry of Magic looked down their collective noses at those beings they deemed to be "of _near_ human intelligence." Albus knew many of those species: centaurs, veelas and goblins in particular, were superior to humans in terms of intellect. He thought most of the members of the Ministry were fools to treat them otherwise.

That foolish bigotry was a direct consequence of why many of those races fought against the Ministry during Voldemort's dirty little war a few years back.

_The Colonies have been orbiting the Earth for nearly two hundred years, and yet you _still_ dismiss their existence like many pure-bloods do,_ Dumbledore thought, shaking his head sadly as he headed for a bank of fireplaces. _Your prejudice against Muggles is showing again, Cornelius. You've always been more willing to listen to the likes of blood bigots like Lucius Malfoy and your undersecretary, Umbridge, than to any Witch or Wizard who's ever had enough sense to read a Muggle newspaper._

_Something _beyond_ Voldemort's inevitable return is happening. I fear the unrest that's been brewing in the Muggle world these past few years will soon erupt into a full-blown war, one that will end up impacting _all_ of us, Magical and Muggle alike. Most of all, I _fear_ for Harry's safety._

Dumbledore grabbed a handful of green powder, heaved a heavy sigh, dropped the powder at his feet, and said "Headmaster's office, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry" as he stepped into one of the tall fireplaces. An instant later, the old wizard vanished in a flash of green flames.

**Gundam Factory Infirmary, Colony L3-8253, 7 March, AC 195**

Nanashi slowly opened his eyes and found he was looking up at a white ceiling. It took the youth a moment to realize that he was no longer lying naked, beaten, broken and bleeding on the floor of his quarters, but wearing a hospital gown and tucked into a warm, semi-comfortable bed in the Infirmary.

_I _hate _hospitals_, the nameless teen thought ruefully while wanting to scratch the crook of his left arm. It itched terribly from the tape securing an IV line from his arm to a banana bag, which had a silvery liquid in it.

His body ached, and so did his head, but the pain was nowhere nearly as bad as he thought it would be. The cinnamon-haired youth raised his free arm to touch the spot where Barton caused his forehead to collide with the floor and noticed his wrist was covered with Telfa pads and his arm was wrapped in gauze and tape from his knuckles to just past the pads. Looking at the other, he saw that it, too, was similarly bandaged.

Feeling under his long bangs with his free hand, he found the wound on his forehead had a Telfa pad taped over it, absorbing any seepage from the injury. What he _couldn't_ feel were the cut itself or the six "butterfly" adhesive sutures holding it closed under the pad.

A moment later, he began to weep and shiver uncontrollably, his tears running from the outer corners of his emerald green eyes and into his hair. He couldn't help it; the memory of his rape at Trowa Barton's hands replayed itself over and over again in his mind, all of it still as painfully raw as the skin of his wrists.

He knew what passed for the law on this colony would never arrest Barton for this crime; the cops might be a part of the United Earth Sphere Alliance, but it was Trowa's father, Dekim Barton, who signed their paychecks. Nanashi also knew he owed his surviving that ordeal to Harry. The little boy's cries for help alerted the entire base, especially the man with the prosthetic nose, Doktor S. He had been on his way to see the youth, was the first to hear them and come to their aid.

"Ah, you're awake," the Gundam engineer said, popping into the room as if he'd been conjured. "Good. Your little brother was worried about you."

Nanashi tried to speak, but all that issued from his throat was a hoarse croak and the sound of his dislocated jaw popping back into place. He swallowed and winced as his throat burned like someone had poured acid down it.

"Take it easy there, son. You'd almost stopped breathing when I brought you here, so they had to intubate you. Your throat was injured when they removed the breathing tube this morning, so don't try to talk for a while."

"If you need to say something, use these," Doktor S added, handing the nameless youth a tablet computer and a stylus.

"_How long was I unconscious?_" Nanashi wrote.

The youth showed what he'd written to the scientist, who read the question and replied with "Four days. You're lucky you brought that little boy back with you. He probably saved your life. Trowa Barton _did this_ to you, didn't he?"

Nanashi looked down at the tablet for a moment, his full frontal cowlick hiding the pain and shame that was clearly etched on his handsome face, and then nodded.

Doktor S went on, telling Nanashi about the treatment he was undergoing, but the teen had tuned him out after he said concussion, a black eye, bruised ribs and ruptured diaphragm. He didn't want or need to hear a recap of that night, even if it _was_ a third hand one.

Finally, when the scientist finished, Nanashi wrote down the question that had been plaguing his mind since waking up.

"_Where's Harry?_"

"The little boy?" the scientist asked, and the youth nodded. "He's sleeping in the bed next to yours. He refused to leave you, even though some of the other techs offered to take him in for a while. You're going to want to talk to him when he's wakes up, so I'll leave you alone for now."

Doktor S then turned and left the nameless teen to his thoughts, leaving the tablet with him.

_Harry..._ Nanashi thought sadly as he looked at the sleeping child's sweet face. _He's still just a baby, too young to have seen the results of what Barton _did_ to me..._

"I'm _not_ a baby, Triton," Harry said sullenly, opening his emerald eyes and causing Nanashi's own deep green eyes to widen in shock. "Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia never hurt me like that bloke hurt _you_, but they used to hit me all the time, an' they let Dudders and his friends beat me up every day... told me I deserved it for being a freak."

_:You... you HEARD me?:_

"Uh-huh."

If the cinnamon-haired youth could have laughed at that moment, he would have; it was all just too funny for words. He hadn't been able to communicate like _that_ since he was four, and that had only been with some other children in that hellhole the Alliance called an orphanage. An orphanage which was, in truth, a testing facility the Romefeller Foundation financed to locate children with special gifts, or what they called Newtype abilities.

Only he and one other Earth-born child, a little girl he and the others who were trapped there called Lee-Lee, tested positive for the abilities the scientists were looking for. The other children who tested positive were all Colony-born, and the only one he got close to was a little blond haired boy he called Cat-Cat.

_:If _you're_ a freak, little bit, then so am _I_,:_ Nanashi "said," this time purposely projecting his thoughts to Harry. _:I'm _thinking_ to you, Harry, not talking. It's called telepathy. You see, they took out a tube that was helping me to breathe, so my throat's too sore for me to say anything.:_

"Wow, brilliant! D'you think I can do it, too?" Harry asked hopefully. He really wanted to know if he could.

_:It wouldn't hurt for you to try it, and it'll be a big help if one of us winds up in trouble. You'll have to concentrate a little, though.:_

Harry screwed up his face, trying to concentrate on getting Nanashi to hear him through his thoughts. He tried and tried, then finally thought _:Can you hear me now?:_

_:Loud and clear, Harry,:_ the teen thought back with a slight smile. _:You did it!:_

_:I did, didn't I?:_

_:You sure did. I'm proud of you, Harry.:_

Harry's cheeks turned pink at the compliment. Nanashi was the first person who ever told him they were proud of him and it felt good, but he knew better than to let it go to his head. The Dursleys made sure of that by accusing him of cheating every time he did better in school than Dudley. Because of that, Harry started pretending he wasn't all that smart by "forgetting" to turn his homework or deliberately writing down the wrong answers on tests. That way, Dudley would look good no matter how abysmal his grades really were.

But Harry knew he didn't have to act dumb around "Triton"; the teen accepted that Harry was a bright little boy and wouldn't allow him to pretend otherwise. That was why Nanashi started teaching Harry how to use a computer.

A moment later, Harry yawned. They were both still very tired and needed more rest. Nanashi scooted over a little closer to the IV stand and drew the blankets aside. Harry hopped in beside his new big brother, snuggled in against him and fell back to sleep while the teen replaced the covers over them both and closed his eyes. It would be a rest period devoid of nightmares for both boys.

**Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland, 7 March, AC 195**

Upon returning to the fireplace in his office, Dumbledore stepped out, walked across the room and sat down behind his desk. He was aggravated and exasperated by Fudge's blind stupidity, but what could he do? The Minister was convinced that Harry Potter was kidnapped on Earth, that the advances of the Muggle World were the products of someone's overactive imagination, and there was nothing anyone could do or say to make him see otherwise.

After settling into his chair better, Albus pet his familiar, a phoenix he named Fawkes, and then asked Hogwarts' four Heads of House and the Keeper of Keys to come to his office. He needed their advice, and they needed to know what was truly going on. Harry's disappearance from the L3 cluster was one story that would _never_ appear in the Daily Prophet. They followed Fudge's lead on most everything.

_You were right, Minerva,_ he thought as he waited. _We should _never_ have entrusted Harry's safety to Lily's family. They were _not_ worthy of the trust we placed in their hands..._

Within minutes, four Hogwarts professors convened in Dumbledore's office: Minerva McGonagall, the Head of Gryffindor House; Filius Flitwick, Ravenclaw; Pomona Sprout, Hufflepuff; Severus Snape, Slytherin, and one Rubeus Hagrid, Groundskeeper and Keeper of Keys.

"I have been informed that Harry Potter was taken from the Dursleys' custody while vacationing on Colony 8253 in the L3 cluster..."

Hagrid and three of the four professors looked like they'd been poleaxed, but Snape, a tall, thin-faced man with greasy, shoulder length black hair and black robes, sneered snidely. He'd known the Evans girls since he and Lily were nine, so he knew just how petty and spiteful Petunia was. He also had a bad habit of treating Lily's only child with the same level of disdain he'd felt for James Potter during their years as students.

"Taken?" Snape interrupted in an openly spiteful tone, a malicious smirk creasing his features. "More like the arrogant little brat _ran away_ from them..."

"Harry is _not_ James, Severus, and you'd do well to _remember_ that!" McGonagall snapped irritably, her Scottish accent slipping out. She was tired of him grafting James' behavior as a schoolboy onto a child who couldn't even remember who his father _was_, much less the pranks he'd pulled in his youth, but had long ago given up trying to tell him to grow up and get over it.

Snape could hold onto a grudge like a bulldog did a bone; that was an indisputable fact. That Lily chose James over him had been a serious blow to his ego, even though Snape's big mouth had cost him her friendship in their fifth year. In a roundabout way, to Snape, her choosing James Potter instead of him had been what signed her death warrant.

"Minerva is quite correct, Severus," Dumbledore interrupted sagely. "Harry is _not_ his father; James and Lily are gone and it is long past time for you to let go of your grudge against them. Now, where was I...?"

"Harry Potter was taken away from his guardians," Professor Flitwick, a tiny, balding wizard with a turned-up nose and a full, bushy white beard, squeaked.

"Ah, yes. Thank you, Filius. As I was saying, Arabella informed me of the Dursleys taking Harry with them to the L3 cluster _before_ I left for the Ministry, yet when I shared this with Cornelius, he scoffed just as he did when I warned him of what Petunia and her husband were like when he had me place Harry with them."

"So what do we do, Albus?" McGonagall asked.

"Though I imagine he's far safer where he is now, it is _imperative_ we locate Harry before any of Fudge's watchers do. If they find him first, he'll be returned to the Dursleys and remain there until they decide to put him out of _their_ misery."

**Resource Satellite WDC-4632, 7 March, AC 195**

A lone youth, armed with only a pair of slender wooden weapons, stood against four men in heavily padded body armor. His lean, fair-skinned body shone with the sweat of his labors, and his pale blond hair was dripping perspiration into his turquoise eyes and sticking to his oval face. The men were showing signs of tiring, but the boy looked like he could continue for hours.

Watching the youth from a control room was a man in his late middle years. He was short, plump, frumpy, jowly and moon-faced, the line of his slicked-back black hair was receding and the ends of his pencil thin mustache literally stood up on end. He was clad in an old lab coat, a button front shirt and tie, suit trousers and a pair of ratty house slippers.

Against his better judgment, the Instructor had grown very fond of the boy who chose to pilot the Gundam he designed. He watched the youth with a hint of pride as he went through his weapons practice. His weapons were a pair of weighted practice blades shaped to resemble Middle Eastern swords called shotels, and the blond-haired boy wielded them with the precision of a warrior born and moved with the grace of a dancer as he spun, ducked, kicked and slashed through these exercises.

The youth was a living contradiction; he was a natural mobile suit pilot, an excellent marksman with both a pistol and a bow and an effective fighter in his sparring sessions. He had strength and a fine mind for tactics and mechanics, yet he was also kind and caring. Almost _too_ caring for what Dekim Barton, the mastermind behind Operation Meteor wanted for his "perfect soldier" program.

During his practice sessions, the boy also showed something of a mischievous side, either by taunting his opponents verbally or playfully slapping their posteriors with the flat of his blades, though he would seek them out and apologize to them for his behavior later on. That showed that he was concerned for his opponents.

So far, the boy's "lessons" consisted of swordsmanship, firearms proficiency, archery and a form of martial arts from the Middle East called krav maga. He also endured training to resist the worst OZ could do to interrogate him short of rape, and genetic manipulation to make his body resistant to all but the most powerful narcotics or drug cocktails.

H had to fire the instructor who started the boy's torture resistance training. The man, who called himself Kronus, had shown an unhealthy interest in the boy because of his sweet face, his bright turquoise eyes and his gift of empathy, which the boy called his Space Heart. Initially thinking the boy weak, Kronus' interest in his pupil grew into a full-blown case of erotomania, going so far as to call the boy Sulmanu after the Assyrian god of war.

A vidphone chimed with a _PI PI PI_, interrupting his train of thought. Instructor H pressed the "answer" button and the familiar face of an old friend with a prosthetic nose appeared on the screen. Before H could greet him properly, Doktor S said "H, we have a problem here."

"Let me guess... the name of your problem is Trowa Barton, right?"

"Yes. He assaulted and raped one of my technicians, a boy he calls No-Name, four nights ago and left him to bleed to death in his quarters."

H reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb, fore and middle fingers and slowly shook his head. First Dekim Barton's friend, or rather flunky, tried to "break" his pilot, and now Barton's son attacked a young technician. It was enough to make a sane person crazy, if both H and S weren't considered so already.

"And we wondered why Dekim wanted someone like Kronus to train all of our pilots _but_ Trowa. Those three are _all_ birds of a feather. Do me a favor, would you? If Kronus shows up on your doorstep, shove him out an airlock for me."

"You should talk. I'm the only one whose _pilot_ is a spoiled, arrogant child molester that I already want to eject into outer space. Worse, I recognized the boy Barton attacked; he was another one of the Newtypes the Alliance and Romefeller were holding for testing ten years ago."

"You're sure?"

"I'm _positive_. He's the one they called Subject 03. Your pilot is one of the others, isn't he? The one they called Subject 04? Does his family know?"

H blanched. From what he'd read about the experiment, the two boys called Subjects 03 and 04 were very close to each other; in fact, they were practically inseparable. What was done to them afterwards was part of the reason his pilot nearly became what people had already thought of him; yet another Winner born from a test tube. His overbearing father never found out who took his only son, or why he was taken in the first place, but if he ever found out...

"Are you out of your ever-loving _mind_, S?" H finally answered. "You _don't know_ what the people of this colony are _like!_ The head of Quatre's family truly believes that the only path to peace between the Colonies and Earth is to lie down and let OZ and the Alliance have their way. The Maguanacs accept Quatre as one of their own... but his own father's disowned him for _not_ wanting to be a doormat. If he finds out what the boy is, he'll allow the people of the colony to _behead_ him as either a witch or a heretic!"

"Behead him? Why? For being an Empath or his being...?"

"Take your pick. Either one is a _death sentence_ for him here," Instructor H interrupted irritably, and then cut off the transmission. He then turned on the microphone on the computer console to speak to his pilot.

"Good job, Quatre," he told the tow-headed youth. "That's enough for now. Why don't you go grab some lunch, and after that you can hit the shooting range."

The tow-headed youth nodded once, set his practice blades back into their rack and then took off in a lope towards the door. The Instructor watched his pupil as he left and again wondered how he could hold out before he would be forced to allow the Bartons to rob this boy of his kindness and compassion.

**Gundam Factory, Colony L3 8253, 8 March, AC 195**

Early the next morning, the physician came in to examine Nanashi, accompanied by a nurse carrying a bundle of clean garments sized for both him and Harry. While he started to unwrap the bandages on Nanashi's wrists to check the injuries to them, she handed Harry the smaller bundle and ordered him to take a shower and wash his hair.

A few minutes later, Harry came out wearing jeans, an emerald green long-sleeved t-shirt and shoes that actually fit his small feet. They'd also brought him a brand new pair of wire framed glasses, and Harry's eyes widened in delight at being able to see properly for the first time.

"What about...?" Nanashi started to ask.

"Your wrists? I'll finish redressing them when you're done and dressed," the doctor said. Nanashi then took the clothes the nurse handed him, then locked himself in the bathroom so he could take his shower.

Several long minutes later, Nanashi emerged wearing a dark blue turtleneck, faded jeans and a new pair of boots. The youth's body was still a little stiff and sore, but the hot shower helped with that. Soon, clean dressings adorned the still-raw flesh of his wrists and the quickly healing cut on his forehead was rebandaged. The doctor deemed that, overall, he was fit enough to go home and rest, and could go back to work at the factory in a day or two.

Nanashi and Harry left of the infirmary together, headed back to the small apartment inside the factory. When they got there, they found a note taped to the apartment door saying that his few possessions had been moved to a new building not far away. Picking Harry up, the pair headed towards the factory instead of to the new apartment. Concussion or no, Nanashi _still_ needed money to support himself and Harry, and he couldn't afford to miss one day of work, even if it _was_ doctor's orders.

When they got there, Nanashi went to his locker and found two sets of coveralls; one his size and one cut down to fit Harry. After slipping the suits over their clothes, Nanashi grabbed his toolbox and strode out to where Heavyarms waited, Harry following hot on his heels. The nameless teen gave Harry a pencil and several sheets of paper he'd found to keep the little boy occupied while he worked on a wonky servo in the Gundam's leg.

He worked in peace for nearly an hour when all Hell broke loose.

"_**WHAT?**_" A familiar voice bellowed angrily, and Nanashi froze. Trowa Barton was being confronted by Doktor S and his assistant, a man whose name the youth couldn't remember. Their voices were incredibly loud, meaning they were close by. "Target only _**OZ**_? You're changing the _plan_, old man!"

"Operation Meteor will kill over _twenty billion people_ on Earth from the onset! Isn't that going _too far?_"

"Exterminating twenty billion _leeches_ isn't going _far enough!_ The Colonies have always been meant to _rule_ over the Earth Sphere! When we finally take control of it, we'll take humanity to _new heights!_"

Doktor S sighed and retorted with "That sounds like your father Dekim talking."

"I get it now. You don't want us to take over the Earth, do you, _traitor?!_ You're _jealous_ that once we _do_, the Barton family will be in charge of everything! _**I'M TELLING MY FATHER ABOUT THIS! I'LL CARRY OUT OPERATION METEOR BY MYSELF AND THE PEOPLE OF EARTH WILL...!**_"

**BANG! BANG!**

**Author's Notes:** If you're concerned that "our" Trowa is going to try to do to Harry what Barton did to him, relax. I've established that they have an big brother/little brother bond between them, and I've known a lot of people who've had a younger sibling crawl into bed with them because they couldn't sleep or had a bad dream, myself included.

I know I promised to have this chapter up on January 25th, and I apologize for it being so late. I'm worried about my dad, who has been in various healthcare facilities since December 23rd. I haven't seen him since the day of his double bypass surgery on the 27th, and getting any accurate information on his condition has been Hell.

Sorry to leave this on another cliffhanger. This chapter started out by pretty much writing itself, but my father's health concerns had me running up the phone bill and my eldest sister Diana, who pretty much kidnapped him so she could isolate him and con him into making another mistake, had been a real bitch towards me. Plus, having to rewrite it twice because the file got corrupted twice has been a lot of fun... not. Thank the Gods I uploaded a copy of this file on one of my websites, just in case.

In future chapters, I'll be referencing some of the events that occur in my AU Heroes of the Future timeline, such as "our" Trowa's problems with the real Barton and the references to Quatre's training, as background material for the pilots' friendship and future relationships with their partners.

I always figured the boys either already knew how to use weapons similar to the ones on their Gundams (like Hiiro with guns and swords, Trowa with guns and knives and Wu Fei with a Glaive/trident) or learned how to (Quatre with shotels and Duo with a scythe). I also think each of the five old farts knew _exactly_ what each of the others was up to. Doctor J practically said as much in the anime.

Speaking of Quatre, this is **not** an OOC portrayal; he's caring and gentle, yes, but he's also been trained as a fighter. While he's not as strong as Hiiro or Wu Fei, as fast as Duo or as agile as Trowa, he can hold his own in a fight, and that's not just my opinion; Rashid thought so, too.

About Instructor H's comment about Quatre's colony on his Empathy, many people in many countries of the Middle East believe that all "magic" is evil, including any kind of psychic abilities. Quatre's Empathy would likely be viewed as a form of witchcraft by many in his colony. Anyone suspected of practicing witchcraft is sentenced to death by beheading, and being anything other than heterosexual is also a death sentence in most of the Middle East, hence the Instructor's concern.

An anonymous reviewer for Chapter One stated that I should have posted a stronger warning about the rape scene, but other than having already edited it down so it conforms to 's standards, I don't see what else I could have done, short of putting the whole warning in bold.

**Next chapter:** Harry and Nanashi return to Earth, get into their first battle with OZ, and join the circus.


End file.
